The appellants sought to file French-language exhibits attached to affidavits in constitutional litigation concerning minority-language education rights.
The majority held that British Columbia law required civil court proceedings, including exhibits relied on for their content, to be in English unless impracticable, and that this framework displaced residual inherent jurisdiction to admit untranslated French documents.
The Court further held that the 1731 English statute was received into provincial law and had not been displaced for this issue.
The dissent would have recognized continued inherent jurisdiction absent clear legislative ouster and remitted the matter for discretionary determination.
The appeal was dismissed, with costs awarded to the appellants.
